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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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Fellow finalists, I'm curious to hear about how you got into the gaming hobby, and what sort of a process you went through to get into the top 32. We already know the judges' side of the story. Now let's hear our side of the story. Please remember to keep mum about your entries for round 2 and beyond, for obvious reasons.
Rather than viewing you as just competition, I hope to learn from you. We all have different strengths and weaknesses as designers and when I viewed your items and read the comments, I learned many things about myself. I hope we all can learn from this experience. :)
Also, I hope our stories inspire other people. If you've never entered the contest, do so next time! If you did submit an item but didn't make the cut, do not despair! The first item I submitted (in 2008) was awful, and I'm still very far from being a professional RPG designer, but I hope to become one and I'm willing to work hard to achieve that goal.
This is my story: (Warning, a very long story, no word limit this time!)
I was 8 or 9 years old when two friends of mine introduced me to D&D. Back then it was the red box, blue box, etc. edition. When I was the DM for the first time, I didn't quite understand the role of the Dungeon Master. I tried to kill their characters, yes, I tried to off their mighty dragon slayers time and time again. The players didn't appreciate it, but I swear I've improved as a GM/DM since then. :D
I tried many other RPGs too, but always came back to D&D, there's just something almost magical about that game, even back when dwarves were dwarves and elves were elves (and those of you who have played that edition know just what I mean...)
But around the time I was 15, I err... got interested in other things, especially the fairer gender. I had many other creative pursuits such as bands and digital art, but I stopped playing roleplaying games. Lots of teenage angst and denial, you know, and being a nerd didn't look very good because I wanted to be such a cool guy. I did continue to play computer RPGs (a closet nerd!), but it's not quite the same as the real thing. To me, the people with whom I play are more important than what rules system we use or which genre the setting is, though admittedly I love fantasy the most, horror/investigation being a close second.
It took me almost ten years to understand that I'm not too cool to play roleplaying games, and also that RPGs are actually really freaking cool and that nerds are really awesome people, my favorite kind of people! And when I say "nerds" I don't mean it as a pejorative; it is a badge I wear proudly.
When I got back to the gaming hobby, the game I started playing with my friends was... surprise surprise: D&D! By that time, D&D had evolved into D&D 3.5, I was glad to see that a lot of things worked better than before, though I must admit that things like THAC0 and the aforementioned thing about "dwarves being dwarves" carry a lot of nostalgic value.
Well, a few years later 4e came along and my gaming group faced a tough decision. Whether to continue playing 3.5 or move on to 4e? I was really open-minded towards 4e (please don't hold that against me!), but not happy with what they did with the OGL. Luckily, a company you all know well saved D&D for me and my friends. In your face, WotC! You can't take the sky from me! I'm curious to see what they'll do with 5e as there are so many difficult decisions they have to make... but I'm sure I'll continue playing Pathfinder. Though not 100% perfect, it's the best edition of D&D I've played and I love it that the company behind it has the "let's make a good game" mindset rather than "let's make profit".
2008-2010
So, 2008 was the first year of the RPG Superstar contest and I was really excited about it. I really didn't know what I was doing, and I submitted a wondrous item that was very much a SIAC and a lot of other abbreviations. Oh, and I also included a lovely bit of backstory, too. And I seem to have thrown in lots of passive voice. :D I guess it's not a totally hopeless item, but it's pretty obvious why it didn't make the cut. Here's the item for your perusal: (In fact, I'd love to see if the judges' comments were just "Reject. Reject. Rejected.") :D
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Murderbloom
A drow sorceress, tales say, created the first murderbloom when her affection for a lover turned into jealousy.
The petals of this ordinary-looking rose open when a command word is spoken. If the rose is touched thereafter by anyone who does not first speak that same command word, it quickly withers and crumbles into a crawling mass of hairy, poisonous spiders. The spider swarm attacks and pursues any living creatures in its vicinity for 6 rounds, after which the spiders scatter.
Faint conjuration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, summon swarm; Price 300 gp.
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In 2009 and 2010 I didn't submit anything because I thought I was too busy with work and other stuff, or maybe I just forgot to. Decembers are always really hectic at work because everyone wants to wrap up their projects before Xmas and they fail to mention this to me until I only have one week left. In 2011 (or rather, in November/December 2010) I decided that it's time for me to make a comeback.
2010-2011
I remembered what mistakes I had made with Murderbloom in 2008, and decided that I'll never ever ever make those same mistakes again! So I read each and every one of the advice threads (I think I submitted the item a little before the end of December for that reason - I didn't want to miss any of the judges' advice). Invisible creatures have always been a major pain in the butt for low-level characters, so I thought I might create something to alleviate that problem without making it too easy to defeat invisible opponents.
I had just finished reading a Pathfinder novel that had Korvosan pseudodragons in it and thought that it'd be fun to make an item that imitates their blindsense ability, an item that allows you and your allies to see invisible creatures the same way I imagined pseudodragons see them. The flavor text includes many little nods at the cute little dragons, such as "silver" because imps hate silver and are enemies of the Korvosan pseudodragons. (As you can see, the references were too obscure for anyone to notice, however.) I went through dozens of iterations until I was happy with the text. I also had three other items I considered, but I thought this item, Whispering Watcher, was the strongest of them.
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Whispering Watcher
Aura faint divination; CL 3rd
Slot —; Price 1,200 gp; Weight 1/2 lb.
Description
This silver statuette, usually crafted in the shape of a crouching pseudodragon, quivers subtly when touched.
Three times per day as a standard action, when holding the statuette in hand, the user can mentally command it to open its mouth and emit powerful but inaudible vibrations in a 30-foot-radius burst. This is a sonic effect.
The air ripples around solid and liquid matter caught in the burst, making any invisible corporeal creatures and objects appear as blurred, indistinct shapes for three rounds. Affected creatures gain no bonus on Stealth checks for being invisible, but for all other purposes they are still considered invisible.
The vibrations do not affect visual figments like they affect real objects and creatures, and therefore, all creatures within line of sight receive a Will save to disbelieve any such illusions within the burst.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, detect magic, ghost sound, see invisibility; Cost 600 gp
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A few weeks later, I got an email from Ross that began with the words: "We have bad news and good news for you." They had selected me as one of the alternates!
As you can imagine, I was immensely excited and disappointed at the same time. 2008 had been the only year that any top 32 contestants had been disqualified or had dropped out voluntarily, so I knew that most likely it wouldn't matter if I submitted an archetype or not. January had been particularly tough for me emotionally, and I really needed good things to happen to me. What's worse, I fell seriously ill a few days before the deadline, so it was really difficult for me to motivate myself to give my best 110%.
Let's just say that round 2 was a really tough round for everyone. I'm quite sure the archetypes got more flak than any round in the history of RPG Superstar. There were good ideas in each of them and some of them were really outstanding, but the save for a few exceptions, the judges had wanted to see something different. However, the 16 contestants that got the chance to redeem themselves did so, in my opinion, and I'm sure we'll see amazing entries in round 2 this year.
In the off chance that someone had actually dropped out and that I had been #33 (of which I'm not sure, the other alternates' items were pretty good), I would have been the underdog, so I had decided to take a calculated risk and pick the wildest of my fever-induced ideas for archetypes. It paid off in the end. Neil didn't like my archetype, but Ryan loved it, giving it full 5/5 points, and Mark said he really wished I had been one of the top 32 contestants. But as you can tell, no-one dropped out and I didn't advance.
I was really bitter, personal life had been tough for me and I didn't need another disappointment. I feel ashamed for having been so bitter back then, but I got over it. Thankfully the folks at the messageboards were being really supportive of me, Sean McGowan in particular. Dankeschön, DankeSean. :)
(So, everyone who felt disappointed when they realized they didn't make the cut this year: Don't give up, keep on trying!!!)
2011-2012
This time I started brainstorming much earlier than in 2011 or 2008. Like Curaigh whose "nine blazing months" thread I presume you all know, I practiced writing wondrous items, though unlike him, I did it privately most of the time. I'm sure it would have been a good idea to discuss wondrous item design with other people because you're usually oblivious of many of your flaws. Even though I made it into the top 32, I now realize there are a lot of things I could have done better.
This time I made a spreadsheet on google docs where I stored all my ideas. Some of the ideas I never developed farther than just one sentence that describes what item type it is and what its core function is. And some of my ideas I fleshed out fully. As far as I recall, I had items with names like Unlight Dew Collector, Heart of Irrisen, Charnel Bell and Seashell of the Skies in my "Keep folder". The seashell was my favorite for a long time and I almost submitted it, but on the 27th of December I found out that there's a spell in UM that does almost the same thing as my seashell. I thought my other items were good but not Superstar, so I went back to square one.
Then I remembered and old idea about a kite you can guide with ki that had Asian/Tian Xia flavor. I'm a huge fan of Japan - I've visited the country a few times, and I do kendo and iaido (Japanese fencing arts), so I'm really excited about anything related to Minkai or Tian Xia. I also thought monks and ninjas needed new ways to use their ki, and I thought it would be innovative to have the item use a different resource than the usual 3 times per day thing. I changed the kite to a lamp with some dragonfly (not butterfly!) flavor because the dragonfly is a traditional and popular Japanese decoration motif and to me, dragonflies symbolize the fleeting nature of things. And these ki dragonflies have really short lifespans.
Unfortunately, the judges did not agree with me on the use of ki, but luckily the item had enough redeeming qualities to make the top 32.
Looking back at my previous round 1 entries, these are some of the things I really like (it's fun to analyze one's old items, it's so much easier to see the flaws once they've gathered dust on your hard drive for a year or two.)
* I like low-level items (this is something Neil generally seems to like about my items)
* I like it that the item gives some hints as to what its function is (the quivering statuette or the lamp being lit if you have ki points.) While it's a good thing that there are spells like identify, it's usually too easy to identify an item, which makes magic more mundane and items less mysterious. What if Gandalf had just cast identify on the One Ring? (Ok, it's an artifact and probably immune to the spell, but you get my drift.) So if you don't like campaigns where wizards auto-cast identify on everything, it's fun to have items like this.
* I like items with powers that build upon each other rather than being separate effects. (The light turns into a thing that draws AOOs, which in turn may trigger daze.) This, in my opinion, is a good way to escape the "SAK trap" as I call it.
Whew, this must be the longest messageboard post I've ever written. I hope it wasn't an awfully boring read!
Hrrm. How to start this one?
I'd never even heard of D&D before the summer of 2001. I played MtG, sure, but I was focused on books. The book that got me into reading fantasy was R.A. Salvatore's Sojourn, which I had no idea was based off a roleplaying game. For years I read, and read, and read, until I couldn't find anything that felt like what I wanted to read, so I started writing my own story in January, 2001. And that summer, while I was waiting for MtG players to show up at the local game store, a guy came in, chatting about running a 'teaching campaign' for D&D. I got curious, and I built my first character before the day was out. She was a half-elf fighter who used two longswords...three sessions in she died to a wild boar.
The campaign I was in lasted three months. Three months of the worst GMing I've ever encountered, yet three months of pure joy for me. I loved to play, to expand my horizons, and to imagine new things. When the GM came to the session, killed everyone's characters, and walked out, never to return? I simply decided that the obvious solution was to start GMing myself. With perhaps a year total of downtime since, I've been GMing ever since.
I have, I admit, been something of a monty-haul GM over the years. My biggest issue is that I take something small and blow it up into epic proportions, and I have trouble scaling things back down to the size of a single adventure. I've been getting better at it, but its something I constantly have to fight, not thinking big.
When it came to RPG Superstar, I all but jumped for joy and threw an item in that I'm certain just got auto-rejected the first time I entered in 2008. It was just dumb, except for a villain with more money than common sense. Last year I entered a pair of gauntlets that the judges seemed to like...but they said, approximately, 'I just don't see this beating out all but 31 other items. Reject.'
And it deserves it. I've been trying to reign in my tendency to go overboard. I'm good at big...not so good at small. But that gives me somewhere to improve on, eh?
I started RP gaming back in 9th grade (about three decades ago), and haven't stopped since then. I'm blessed to have maintained a regular, reliable, and fun gaming group (the members came and went, of course) that entire time, with the exception of a hiatus during college. To me, this is what makes gaming so enjoyable -- it has introduced me to some wonderful people, many of whom are still my friends, even since high school.
I am a recent convert to Pathfinder, although I bought the Core Rulebook when it first came out, and I've been watching the game grow and attract an audience ever since that first beta playtest period. Once I made the decision to jump into PF, I did so with both feet and have found it wonderful. The game brought back so many things that I was missing, and it felt like coming home again.
This is my first year entering RPG Superstar; I knew about the competition, but never felt comfortable entering, since I didn't know much about the PF rules. The thing I love most about this competition is seeing the wonderful interactions between people on the forum boards -- respect, admiration, intelligent discussion, and fun. I also vastly appreciate the time and effort the judges have put into the contest... it is truly a fantastic learning experience.
I am really looking forward to seeing what comes next, and to seeing what happens.
In terms of design, I need to be bolder and to push into the territory beyond "good enough" and into "exceptional." I try to remind myself that fantasy is about the fantastic, and the things I create should reflect that as much as possible.
The excellent feedback I've already received on my Round 1 item has given me a number of helpful insights, and allowed me to step back and think about game design from new angles.
i started out playing basic d&d in probably 8th grade (around '90-'91). we switched to first edition (advanced dungeons & dragons, or ad&d, at the time) almost immediately and then to 2nd edition shortly after that. i've been gaming for 20 years now (which makes me feel old) and i've played in and DMed for every edition of D&D except 4th (which i read the rules set for but couldn't really get excited about).
i started playing pathfinder while it was in beta and really enjoyed it. i thought (and for the most part still do think) that it did a great job levelling off the power creep that plagued 3.x. i've played in a handful of pathfinder campaigns now and GMed two more (though i haven't actually played or run anything in Golarion yet). i enjoy both playing and GMing quite a bit, but i'm very busy right now so currently i'm just playing in a casual (about 1/month) group.
i actually feel a little bit bad about how i found out about rpg superstar... one of my friends from that first party i played basic with (goodwicki on the boards) asked me to proofread his item this year and the contest seemed so awesome i ended up entering too. i was fortunate enough to make the top 32 and he wasn't which kind of stinks- but i am really excited to be in round two :) i'm also looking forward to seeing the judges critique of his item on the official feedback thread. i thought it was really cool item.
to anyone thinking about entering- you definitely should! i've been creating items, monsters, organizations, etc for years now but i've never learned so much about improving those skills so quickly as i have in this contest. its worth it just for that (plus its a ton of fun- even though it can be a bit stressful- and you could even end up scoring some freelance work, which would be incredible!)
All right, I'll bite. It's not like I have anything better to do at the moment, like say....practice my monster-making or anything. :-P
Early days
I've been a book-worm literally since before I could walk. Growing up, the library was one of my favorite places, and among other things, I found those Sword and Sorcery pick-your-path books as well as classics such as the Dragonlance series. Around the time I was ten, I learned about Ad&D 2nd ed from friends in school, and soon got my hands on a Players Handbook (still got it). I didn't really do much gaming, since I never could seem to find people to play with, but I did manage a few short games in between reading the rule books cover to cover. It wasn't long before I got hold of the DMG and other supplements as well, and i started reading the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels.
As the years progressed, I kept buying books, both rulebooks and fiction, and maintained my interest in the game. From time to time, I would find opportunities to play, but I mostly read. During this period, I switched from 2e to 3e, and also got introduced to other games, like Æon Trinity. Ironically, many of the friends I met in high school had been very active gamers when they were younger, but didn't really have the desire to play on a regular basis any more.
Then I started dating my wife-to-be. Things got serious between us, and soon we were moving in together. A college friend of hers helped us, and spotted all my gaming stuff in one of the boxes. Being a gamer himself, he asked me about it, and invited me to one of his 3.5 games. All at once, my geek-nees went from backburner to full flame again. My wife still blames him for that.
Pathfinder and Paizo
At last, I had a (semi)regular game and people to play with. We played the FR campaign Tearing the Weave until the GM moved to Ireland. I used the opportunity to try GM'ing for my new gamer friends and some of my high school buddies.
When the GM returned from Ireland, he came back speaking of something called "Pathfinder" and some sort of beta test. 3.5 was becoming 4e, and we never made the transition. Instead, we began on the Shackled City campaign using Pathfinder rules, and I rolled up an elven fighter/wizard.
On November 9th 2009, I made my first post here on the Paizo messageboards, asking a question about the Magical Knack trait. Before long, I was browsing the forums daily. And a few weeks after I made my first post, a new logo appeared on the front page, announcing Superstar 2010.
Superstar 2010
I was intrigued right from the get-go. And since there was already a wealth of information and advice from the two previous years, I started reading. And reading. And reading.
After extensive research, I had two finish items to choose from. I picked this one for submission:
Aura faint necromancy; CL 3rd
Slot head; Price 4,000 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
This helmet is shaped like the head of a roaring minotaur. It grants the wearer a +2 competence bonus to Intimidate.
Whenever the wearer deals damage to an opponent with a charge, he may issue a resounding warcry as a swift action and make an Intimidate check to demoralize all enemies within 30 feet who were able to see the charge and hear the warcry. If the charge resulted in a confirmed critical, the wearer gets a +4 bonus to this check.
This power can be used once per day for each rank in intimidate the wearer has, though always at least once per day.
RequirementsCraft Wondrous Item, cause fear; Cost 2,000 gp
Naturally, like so many others, I ended up begging Clark for some hint at where I had failed. Here is the commentary Vic finally dug out of the judges forum:
Wes thought you went overboard with the Intimidate skill. You get a bonus to it, a special use of it, and even use the item a number of times based on your ranks in it. Overall, he felt that that made it easy to exploit (though he didn't give examples) and had strange effects.
Sean doesn't get why you chose charging as the action—he doesn't see an obvious connection between charging and intimidating. If you'd chosen bull rush or overrun instead of charge, he said, it would have at least tied to your theme a bit more. He really didn't like that the uses per day is tied to ranks in a skill—no other item in the game works like that.
Sigh...ok, so much for being cool and innovative. On to next year.
Superstar 2011
I was really unsure about whether or not to enter, but I did manage to slap together a half-inspired entry:
Shimmerball
Aura Faint evocation/enchantment; CL 5th
Slot -; Price 4,000 gp; Weight - lbs.
Description
This small, translucent ball is about one inch in diameter and filled with shimmering pixie dust. The glow of the dust causes the ball to continuously shed light as a candle.
A Shimmerball may be thrown at a creature or object as a ranged touch attack with range increments of 10 feet. If the target is hit, it begins to glow as if subject to a farie fire spell. This effect lasts for five minutes. Upon a successful hit, the ball becomes a dull, milky white and ceases to function for 24 hours.
If a command word is spoken before the ball is thrown, it bursts apart upon impact, scattering the pixie dust inside. The target and any adjacent creatures must make a DC 15 Will save or forget everything that has happened for the past five minutes, as if subject to a modify memory spell. Using the ball in this way destroys it completely.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, farie fire, a pinch of pixie dust given freely; Cost 2,000 gp
Once again, I deservedly failed to impress. Reasons given:
*...even if it's a one-time use, modify memory should be included in the construction and pricing of this item.
*...Even if priced correctly, it's a SIAC (or two) acting as a thrown weapon.
*...Vote to Reject.
*...Agreed. Reject.
Superstar 2012
All right...present day. You all know how this turned out. So, what had changed?Here are a couple of things, I'm certain made a difference:
* I kept reading. Rule books, adventures, guides etc. Every word gave me a better understanding of the game.
* I started playing Play-by-Post. The PbP format really trains both your skill at writing evocative descriptions and your knowledge of the rules, since you have loads of time to reference the rules between actions.
* I did my Superstar homework. I read and reread the auto-reject advice. I listened to the Superstar Panel recording. I trawled through the forums of past years.
* I got good feedback and used it to adjust my item. I made cuts and sacrifices along the way, made sure I got the rules right and were clear about the effects and limitations of my item. And that reflected in the judges critique.
Ok, that's it for now. Hope you glean something interesting from this wall of text.
P.s. Vote Jacob 2012.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9
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Intro
I was first introduced to M:tG after Ozzfest in 10th grade. The very next weekend I was introduced to AD&D.
Evolution
I moved onto a bunch of different systems over the years. 3rd Edition came out while I was deployed and I had to wait 3 agonizing months for my first game. When 3.5 came out, I reluctantly switched over due to peer pressure. And when Pathfinder was released, I jumped on board.
Currently
ATM I am only playing/running Pathfinder and Savage Worlds.
Item Design Thoughts
Balanced?
Useful?
Abuse-able?
General Design
Scribble random thoughts for a few days, then focus my inner magician, and pull something out of my [redacted].
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka Jiggy
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When I was a kid, my grandparents went against the wishes of my parents and bought a Super Nintendo for me and my brothers. Before long, we'd played an RPG or two (Super Mario RPG and EarthBound).
Even though none of us had heard of pen-and-paper RPGs before, I took it upon myself (due to parental limits on video game time) to figure out the rules systems behind the stats and mechanics of these games and translate them to pen-and-paper so we could make our own custom characters. The idea of dice never occurred to me, so we clicked a stopwatch when we made attacks: get within about .03 seconds of a clean, one-second interval and you crit (ala "timed hits" from Super Mario RPG) and getting too far off is a miss. We had no concept of roleplaying though, so it was mostly just character creation and some pretty dumb fights based on estimated monster stats and custom spells.
Similarly, we would invent "stores" with lists of materials and items to buy for either these characters, or else to create robots or spaceships to emulate elements of other video games.
Eventually, once my older brother was in high school, his friends introduced us all to tabletop RPGs and Magic: the Gathering. My parents put the kibosh on both (buying into the moral panic of the time). I went on to create a sci-fi version of MtG (thus eliminating the "evil" part of it) on index cards using the MtG rules as best I could remember them from being taught once. (Unfortunately, the card pool I created was miserably small, so it kind of sucked. But hey, I was like 14 or something, gimme a break!)
Around the time my younger brothers were just getting into high school, they tried out Yugioh, and I went along with it too (it wasn't as "evil" as Magic). Played that for a few years, and in my prime I was consistently Top 8'ing local tournies using decks built on a fraction of my competitors' budgets (I've never had much money).
After college (and getting married), I met some Magic players at a new church I started going to (ironic, no?) and got into that. Played it for a few years, eventually becoming a certified Rules Advisor after I moved away from my friends and started into local tournaments in another state. Became a minor presence on that scene (still none too rich) until I eventually rocked a tournament using card choices that were one step ahead of the curve (for those who'll know what it means: I caught on to the power of Inquisition of Kozilek before the mainstream did). Suddenly I felt I had nowhere left to go, and realized that the game's original charm was gone for me, so I dropped it once I saw that my FLGS was hosting Pathfinder Society.
I made my first character in May or June of 2011 and started learning the Pathfinder rules as fast as I could (eventually discovering that my character was illegal for PFS - Rich Parents trait). Fast-forward a few months and now I've got half a dozen active characters, with more ideas on the way.
Then one day in December, I see the logo for RPG Superstar 2012. I think to myself "You know, I've seen that term around a few times; I wonder what it is..."
I click it. I read it. My head asplode.
Unable to curb my enthusiasm, I submit an entry way too hastily - basically an idea in the back of my head for a day, then I put it together during my lunch break the next day. And I guess the rest is history. :P
Been playing since 1984. Oddly enough, got started with AD@D instead of Basic set, although I read both. I was heavy into comic books and this was just an outgrowth...I can still remember the magical feeling I got when going through Toys'R'Us and seeing the Monster Manual there with the Pegasus on the cover with the Red Dragon breathing, opening it up and reading about ki-rin and genies...
I roped my brother and his best friend into playing, and we basically went through modules, not having the kind of time to make up our own. We went through a LOT of modules.
We've been through Against the Giants three times, each time upgraded for a new version. Only once did we make it all the way to Queen of the Demonweb Pits, however.
Dark Clouds Gather. That module was EPIC!
Ravenloft, several times. Every time it played different because of those damn cards. ANd that map of the castle is still the greatest map in D&D.
Ravager of Time. Want your players to learn to hate Juju zombies? Play this module. the ambush we unleashed on the lady at the end was overwhelming...we hated her SO much.
Desert of Desolation. Woo, hoo, skiing on glass!
Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain and Lost Caverns also got multiple runs from us. We also did a lot of the encounters out of the Book of Lairs, and ran through multiple dungeons from Dungeon Magazine.
Our single biggest module, and our last real hurrah, was Greyhawk Ruins. Yes, we went through that entire module, every single lair, every single map. Took a party of a dozen characters to 15th level. We had battlemaps scattered all over the floor of my sister's house on the bay while we were house-sitting for her...
Alas, we got older, and interest in play turned too time consuming, and everyone drifted apart and basically relegated to books to get our fantasy fix.
I did have an active gaming crew in my late 20's, but we played other systems, mostly Warhammer. The GM was good and insightful, but it has a much grittier feel then D&D. We came back together for a short campaign when 3E came out, taking a break from Lo5R and MTG card-gaming. I'm proud to say my halfling fighter-rogue made it to level 12, and was the only character who didn't die over the course of that campaign. We were a bit unusual because almost nobody was a spellcaster, they all had the 1E mindset that fighters were the best. I turned the party upside down when I recruited a gnome wizard with leadership, and took apart bunch of slaads that was going to be a great encounter by successfully slowing the lot of them for the party to tear apart.
I wouldn't mind getting into an active game and seeing how differently it plays. But I will treasure my old, original characters until the day I die, even if today a grey elven F/MU/Druid 9/17/14 just screams cheese!
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Last year's submission was roundly rejected. The judges completely misinterpreted the angle that I was coming from, looking at what it did instead of the lore behind it (it was designed to emulate the 'chosen one' effect for all the would-be gods in Absalom).
I took that as a message to make the next item as clear and simple to understand as possible, and divorce it from any tie to the game world. The Figurine of Familiar Power was actually designed back then, reading through Sean's posts on what not to do a second time (funny, they didn't warn away from how I got rejected :P), and I've been waiting an entire year to submit it, basically.
As for gaming credits...well, I still peruse the WoTC boards, I believe I got one guy banned from it over twenty times (he'd get barred, create a new account, pick up again where he left off with his drivel, get barred again...and he still posts on these boards sometimes).
My biggest contributions over there were the Lockdown Fighter/20 build, which went into far, far more detail for a fighter build then any other one ever posted. Actually, the trick about wearing a shrunken cone/hat so it would drop down over you when an Antimagic shell hit you was first mentioned seriously on my Lockdown thread, I believe, and spread from there. Some wags pegged my build as a mage dueling build, and then kept getting killed with it, so they had to keep coming up with fantastic methods to try and get out of an A-M shell with a Stand Stilling fighter on top of them. It wasn't pretty.
The Fighter vs Warblade comparison was another well-received analysis. By the time you get done realizing the Fighter has 11 class abilities, and the Warblade has 43, and casters have in excess of 70, there's little doubt why Fighters have problems in 3E.
I coined the term 'Uber shield' to describe a Shield +5 of Bashing, +5 Defender, for a shield build that I put up (that thread resulted in the multiple banning of a vitriolic BG forum guy, above). The shield is designed for max AC for 100k. The build would go two-handed, sword and shield, or TWF/Shield Bashing, whatever was most appropriate at the time, and had a walk-around AC of 49 at all times. It was poo-pooed because it wasn't a devoted Uber Charger build, despite the fact that statistically it would take an average Uber Charger build apart due to being unhittable.
So, I've been lurking on the forums for years, watching how the game changes and different styles. The BG forum 'bend the rules and break them' style always irritates me, and I admit to loving Bob Loblaw's posts about how to apply the rules and run a fair game. He always strikes me as the most reasonable person on these boards (I admit, I tend to find a position and stick to it, and I tend to be conservative about it).
As far as influencing the game I love, I've done that, too. If you look at the FR Book Champions of Valor, there are two organizations covered in that book: the Knights of the North, and an organization for random Good-aligned monstrous creatures (I forget the name). Well, Sean K Reynolds had an active website at that time, and asked for ideas for organizations to include in that book. BOTH of those were my idea...the Knights of the North had faded into obscurity in 3.5, despite having this wicked cool lady fighter with double spec in bastard sword and longbow (Jhesentel?), and being devoted high-level enemies of the Zhentarim in the original boxed set. It was like the years did nothing for them, and it was time for an update!
Likewise, I wanted to know why things like shedus and lammasus and androsphinxes and good dragons and the like didn't have some sort of organization that gave them support, however lightly. Bing! SKR delivered!
I may or may not be responsible for Ed Greenwood finally giving Elminster some kids. I brought up the subject at the Gencon where they announced 3.5 (I still have the t-shirt they handed out then). I think I was sitting next to his wife in the audience...A couple years later, zing, book about his daughter by a half-dragon...and the queen of Cormyr was also his daughter...
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This is my second year submitting an item, and I'm hoping that the criteria I established for my organization will work.
I'll go into the criteria after the orgs get posted tomorrow.
I'm actually kind of bummed. I had a whole fighter archetype planned out since last year for use. Oh well! :)
Best of luck to the rest of you in this game I still love.
==Bob D
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Locke1520
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This has been an interesting read so I'll share too. I'll try to spare everyone a wall of text but as was pointed out before there's no word limit to reign us in so I can't promise anything.
When I was 10, I became involved in a summer board game program run from our neighborhood park. I hit it off with one of the other guys in particular, another Andrew. We played games of all sorts except RPGs but Andrew's parents bought him the red box basic set and he invited a few of us back to his place to try it.
I was hooked. I got my own set which was followed by the Expert, and Companion sets...then we moved to AD&D. From there we played more games than I can count. For a long time D&D was my system of choice but sometime during the second edition run I played it less and less frequently and it seemed unlikely I would really ever return to it. Until 3E. The advent of d20 rekindled the old spark. The release of 3.5 was a surprisingly welcome update. I ran a number of 3rd edition campaigns one of the most successful was when I ran Shackled City from the hardcover. I was already a fan of Paizo but that campaign also made me a fan of the AP adventure format.
I like to tinker with my games: create new spells, magic items, variant rules systems. So when Paizo introduced RPG Superstar I jumped at it the first year--and ended up in the reject bin. Second time I entered, same thing. This is my third time entering and I came at the contest a little differently than I had the two times before. Previously I worked from a full concept and constantly kept altering the text for this or that and worrying away at the design until what I submitted was pretty much a mess. This year I came in with three design goals and stayed focused on those goals and on making sure my entry wasn't going astray. I pounded out most of my entry in only a couple hours (any longer and it might have sunk into the same morass my first two efforts had.)
I bounced the finished entry off of a couple of beta readers: my wife and Andrew (whom I'm still friends with after all these years) then hit the submit key.
Okay, I'll date myself by admitting I've been playing since I was in first grade, back around in 1982. I had played a few times with friends in school, then saved my allowance and bought the Red Box from the Sears Catalog, and picked it up in the Sears Outlet in Quakertown PA. (For you youngsters out there, the Sears Catalog was kinda like Amazon for toys and games, but printed out.) Over the next few years I got the AD&D books the same way, and then through Walden and Borders through high school.
In college at Ann Arbor I played a lot, although I switched over to Shadowrun for a long time. Mostly a player then, but I dis write some stuff up and got some things published for SR in Pyramid mag.
Out in CA in 2000, I started getting big into 3.0 and 3.5. I ran three different games over 6 years, including getting my now wife into it. Unfortunately with marriage and two boys at home gaming time is scarce, but in a few more years the oldest should be about ready for his first quest.:-)
Interesting thread, Mikko. (And I remember your item from last year, which I recall liking.)
The start
Like others, I started way back with the boxed edition -- I want to say I was in the third or fourth grade, which would've been '83 or '84. I remember the blue dice you had to pencil in with the white crayon thing. I have the vaguest of memories of running through "Expedition to Barrier Peaks."
I played a lot growing up, though to be honest, I don't recall most of the campaigns. I think they were probably a lot of just getting huge amounts of treasure. I vaguely remember one female wizard who ended up having lots of animals she trained -- I think she had a cheetah/leopard/liger/something and rode around on an elephant by the end. And I wanted to change her name in the middle of gaming so the first name ended up being a pseudonym she used since you never want to let people know your real name.
Ooooh, and I just remembered I had a kender. I LOVED kenders. I of course had a list with all the stuff in her pouches so I could roll to see what I grabbed. And the artifact she got that gave her a white stripe down her hair -- obviously that was when we got in our X-Men phase.
Fortunately, my parents are old fantasy nerds -- my mother especially still loves Lord of the Rings (our first dog was named after a character from the books) -- so they were always encouraging of my hobby.
I tried bunches of other games, which mostly means I'd make up characters and if I ever played them, it was never more than a half-dozen times: Top Secret, Toon, Gamma World, Battletech, TMNT, Torg, Talislanta, a home-brew game or two (though Champions and Shadowrun lasted a bit longer). Like you all, I kept coming back to fantasy, mostly D&D.
The fallow ages
I also dropped out of gaming a bit during that high school era. Honestly, I think it was more that my closest friend I gamed with really lost interest but it's hard to play by one's self.
I tried to start up a bit again freshman year in college, but it didn't work out for reasons I don't really recall. I guess I just didn't hit it off with the group of gamers I'd met, so moved on to other pursuits (mostly IRC, and RAC* on Usenet).
After college, I moved out to the middle of nowhere, Ohio. Definitely no role-playing there.
The Renaissance
However, after a year in Podunk, I got a job in State College, Pa. Nerd renaissance! I don't really remember exactly how I got back into gaming , but I assume I must've seen a flyer (for Rolemaster) during a trip to the comic store and said, "Hey, I remember gaming. I used to really like it." That petered out and I tried a couple other games (Vampire, for the first time) and eventually got into D&D 3.0 (I think I actually got the books for free, since I reviewed them for my newspaper).
The present
Moved to eastern Pennsylvania a little more than nine years ago and ended up meeting my current closest friends here via a flyer in the local comic store. Mostly it's three of us (with me GMing most of the time now, though we've all taken our turns), but sometimes my friend's wife joins in games as well. We played a bunch of D&D -- several campaigns coming and going -- with our best campaign being one that took us from 10th to 15th level. Stuck with 3.0 when 3.5 came out since none of us wanted to update our books.
When 4.0 came out, I bought those books, as did one of my friends and we both kind of decided we'd still just stick with 3.0 (especially since our third friend had no interest in buying new books). I forget how I discovered Pathfinder. Most likely, my friend bought the book, though I don't know how he'd have learned of it. I knew Paizo had taken over Dungeon magazine, but I'd no clue about Pathfinder.
Once I learned about it, though, I felt (and feel) like it fixed soooo much of what I didn't like about 3.0 that I really couldn't have been (and still can't) be much happier with it. I remember just being SOOOO excited about it when I learned about it, especially with how skills had been fixed. Where 3.0 gave a fighter, for example, no skill points and no options on where to spend them, Pathfinder (or D&D 3.75 as I probably shouldn't admit we still sometimes call it...) took away the restrictions and made it so I could have a fighter who could also spot something lurking in ambush.
Started doing PBP games on the website a year ago, shortly after discovering the website and Superstar contest.
Superstar!
I learned about the contest last year but didn't enter. I thought of an item I thought was interesting (and still do, though it's not Superstar -- basically a set of paired circlets that let one person see and hear what the other is experiencing; though they'd get sickened if they opened their eyes while looking through the other person's) but couldn't quite get a name I liked and never wrote it up.
I figured I'd practice all year and never did. : / When this year's contest came around, I was STILL playing with that item in my head. Then I was lying in bed and the mirror of many echoes (posted in the self-reject thread) came to me out of nowhere. I wrote up a couple versions of that, but just couldn't quite nail it. I think I was perusing last year's items (and the critique thread) when something in the candle of viscous ephemera caught my interest. From there, my haunting glass was born.
I probably consider myself weakest on the mechanical aspects of the game. I think where I excel is adventure ideas and general world building -- I like things to have consistency. I'm really excited (and nervous, of course) to see feedback for Round 2, since I *think* it's the round that plays best to my strengths (though whether people will like the choices I made, who knows). I'm far more nervous about Round 3 and 4 -- because I generally play with just two people, the balance I'm used to working for is off from the standard. I don't actually create a lot of my own monsters (or magic items, for that matter), since I tend to use mostly humanoid NPCs with classes as my bad guys and then rely on a couple choices from the Bestiaries.
Sommers -- another eastern Pennsylvanian? Do you ever get back to the Quakertown area?
Sommers -- another eastern Pennsylvanian? Do you ever get back to the Quakertown area?
My dad and cousin still live in Macungie, and my sister and her kids are in Pottstown. I try to get back a few times a year if I can, but its tough to haul the whole clan out there. I was back there, staying in Quakertown, for the Christmas 2010 blizzard with my wife and kids. All sorts of fun driving around in a rear-wheel-drive Charger. :)
No way. I lived in Macungie for my first five years in the Lehigh Valley, before I bought a place in Bethlehem. Very, very small word.
No way. I lived in Macungie for my first five years in the Lehigh Valley, before I bought a place in Bethlehem. Very, very small word.
You know where Bear Creek Mountain is? He lives right up the street from there. He used to own the bar a little bit further up that used to be called The Red Lion Inn.
This is taken from a blog post I wrote in 2007:
*picture*
As you can see, it had a picture on the cover of a warrior fighting a red dragon. The artist, Larry Elmore, is one of my all-time favorite artists. When I bought the book of his collected works (Elmore: 20 Years of Art), I paid more for it to include an original pen-and-ink drawing. I sent him an e-mail, and he actually drew what I asked him to--a picture of a beautiful elf woman. It's one of my prized possessions. I've purchased countless D&D books since the two listed above, but these are the ones that unleashed my imagination.
Now let's talk about dice! The Basic Set came with polyhedral dice. The faces of the dice were engraved with numbers, but you had to fill them in with a crayon to get them to show up. :) I don't remember when I bought my first set of "real" dice with painted-in numbers, but I'm sure it was at Hammond Toys & Hobbies in the Layton Hills Mall. They had all kinds of dice in their display case. Mike favored "smoke" (i.e. translucent black) or "root beer" (translucent brown) dice, but I was always partial to the blue ones. Ryan strategically let us buy dice and then simply borrowed ours. :) We usually played with only a d20 (twenty-sided die), so I guess we were visionaries (D&D has since gone to the "d20" system). To this day, I have a small collection of dice...
The Ryan mentioned above has since died of a cocaine overdose. He was my best friend growing up. From age six to around sixteen, we were inseparable. Ironically, it was when he first got into drugs that we drifted apart. He was always our DM, and boy do I miss him! R.I.P., Ry! :( D&D was such a huge part of our lives together, that I actually put a d20 in the casket with him at his funeral. I still have that set of dice, minus the d20, almost like a missing man formation. It's in my dice bag as a constant reminder of the good times as well as what I've lost. I wish Ryan could see me now! By the way, I don't want to make Ryan sound like he was only a druggie loser. He served our country as a Ranger in the Army Special Forces. I was never more proud of Ry than when they played Taps at his funeral.
On a happier note, I have always been a lover of fantasy. It grew when I first picked up the Shannara series by Terry Brooks in junior high school. As a librarian, I have a great love of books. Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, and the older Legend of Drizzt books by R.A. Salvatore are some of my other favorites. Dragon magazine was always a favorite collection of mine, so I was pretty bummed when it went away. I rolled my Dragon subscription into Rise of the Runelords, and the rest is history. I LOVE Paizo! I LOVE Pathfinder! I couldn't be happier really. What a great time to be a fan! :)
Though I've followed them all, this is actually my first year entering RPG Superstar. I was floored when I got in. Now I'm just having fun, working hard on my submissions, and running with it as far as it goes! :) I had the same idea for an item rolling around in my head for about three years now. I kept thinking I should submit it, but I kept chickening out. (Let that be a lesson to anyone who has been thinking the same thing. Go for it! Submit your item!) On a behind-the-scenes design note, my Gloves of Reconnaissance started out as the "Peeking Pommel." It was a round lump or metal that looked like an eyeball. If you held it up to a weapon handle or haft, it would bond to the item. The effect was the same except you controlled where the eye was looking by holding the pommel up to a surface and then pivoting it around. I always hated the name, though. Not sure how it evolved into gloves.
Well, there you have it! I'm excited and nervous for Round 2 all at the same time. The good thing is that I feel like my organization was the best work I am capable of. If it advances, great! If not, at least I held nothing back. Don't get me wrong. I really want to stay in the competition! :) In fact, that's really my overall hope for any of us that made it into the 32 this year--that we can do our best work. Then the right man will rise to the top regardless. Good luck to us all!
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Contributor
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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I'm glad that so many of you had the time to share your stories about how your got into RPGs and so on. :)
The idea of dice never occurred to me, so we clicked a stopwatch when we made attacks: get within about .03 seconds of a clean, one-second interval and you crit (ala "timed hits" from Super Mario RPG) and getting too far off is a miss.
This is a pretty awesome action resolution mechanism! You know, you could have developed it further: one-second interval for easy tasks, and the higher the "DC", the longer the interval. :)
That kind of reminded me of something I didn't mention in my story. As a kid, I did too make board games and simple RPGs and I played them with my friends. I also learned some Basic, Visual Basic and Assembler, and made dozens of computer games for Amiga OS, MS DOS and early versions of MS Windows. One of my favorites was a platform jumper where an anthropomorphic rabbit kills giant bees and other monsters with a boomerang. :D
Even today I like designing games for fun. I play a lot of play-by-posts, but I've always thought that D&D (both 3.5 and 4e) is a bit too clunky and slow for messageboards. A combat encounter can take weeks and weeks, and most people are far too impatient, and most games die sooner or later. So, my top priorities in game design is streamlining, ease of use, reducing memory load, and predictability of rules. As a game designer, I'm more of a gamist rather than narrativist or simulationist.
As for my education and career, I'm something of a usability & documentation expert, and a professional technical writer. And I've noticed that user manuals, user interfaces and role-playing games have a lot in common. If you're interested, check out Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics, and you'll see that at least 5 of the 10 heuristics also apply to RPG design.
I've got to commend you guys for using this time and the messageboards to share more about yourselves. If you haven't spent much time on the Paizo boards before (as compared to someone who has), you really need to start giving the voters a sense of who you are, where you came from, how you see the game, etc. Sean (and I) have encouraged contestants in the past to update their profiles here on the messageboards so people can at least click on your name and read more about you (to get a sense of the designer behind the designs). This thread's topic is doing a good job of providing some of that insight about you. Even so, you still might want to update your profiles just to make it easier for folks--i.e., so they don't have to find their way to this thread to learn these things about all of you.
Carry on,
--Neil
No way. I lived in Macungie for my first five years in the Lehigh Valley, before I bought a place in Bethlehem. Very, very small word.
I lived in Emmaus and worked in Allentown 2007-2008.
Sommers, I used to ski a lot at Bear Creek.
Wow, Lehigh Valley represent, Steve! Whereabout are you now?
Very small world -- we'll all definitely have to find a way to get together to play the 2012 Superstar's module when it comes out next year.
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Contributor
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Dedicated Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
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Even so, you still might want to update your profiles just to make it easier for folks--i.e., so they don't have to find their way to this thread to learn these things about all of you.
Carry on,
--Neil
Yes, good idea. I was lazy (=practical) and just added a link to this thread in my profile. :)
Uhh, it feels like someone has used bottled time on me because time seems to pass so slowly today. The worst part about this contest is not the tight deadlines or demanding assignments, it's the waiting.
Uhh, it feels like someone has used bottled time on me because time seems to pass so slowly today. The worst part about this contest is not the tight deadlines or demanding assignments, it's the waiting.
I think most of us in the Top 32 feel this way. I'm sure feeling it, and I've noticed that several of our fellows are burning time by commenting on all the items.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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Luckily, I'm flying to Toronto Wednesday morning for a job interview. That will help with the temptation to discuss my organization. Also, if the comments are really bad, I won't see them until much later. :)
I don't know if I'll get to Round 4, but if so, I think the vacation I've got scheduled March 6-12 will be a lifesaver in that I won't be sitting at my computer 24-7 looking at comments and counting votes. (Of course, I may be far too distracted by wondering what's going on online to truly appreciate hiking in the Grand Canyon ...)
Add me to those trying to comment on all the items -- sorry if it's taking me some time, I'm also doing research on some potential Round 3 options.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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As far as my background goes:
I was a poor coal miner's daughter. No, wait, wrong story.
I started at the age of 12 in 1980, when I got the blue box for my birthday. I followed that purchase up with the Fiend Folio (at JC Penney, of all places), because the githyanki looked really cool, and the monsters inside were so bizarre. I then found out that my neat purchase didn't actually mesh with what I had, so I convinced my parents to buy me the Player's Handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual. The first games I played with friends in Junior High were the typical munchkinly affairs, where we eventually decided to fight gods out of Deities & Demigods. After my friends had moved on to other interests, I ended up playing with young NCOs from my dad's unit. There was more emphasis on story with those guys, and it was an interesting experience being younger than everyone by at least 6 years. They tolerated my being there, but I managed to add something to their game experience as well.
My dad got reassigned just before my senior year of high school, so I moved to Florida. I lucked into another group of friends who played D&D, and this time I started DMing a lot more. I was (and still am to some extent) very capricious as a DM, and, whenever my friends (most of whom no longer play) and I get together, they still tell stories about the time an NPC telekinetically lobbed a vorpal sword at one of the PCs heads. So, yeah, the whole rules grasp hadn't actually sunk in yet. :)
College was pretty much limited to vacations when I could get together with my friends, since there didn't seem to be a lot of interest in gaming where I went. I was pretty busy with studying too, so I didn't have much time during the school year. When I joined the Air Force, I found plenty of other people who gamed, so we played pretty regularly. That changed when my son was born (and my daughter 2 years later), and I pretty much suspended playing until I had more nights free. This corresponded to the "dark times" for TSR, so there wasn't a lot of new stuff coming out that I wanted anyway.
After leaving the Air Force and moving to North Carolina, I found another group of people who played. We started with a RuneQuest game, which was fun, although the repercussions for bad choices were much more severe in the system (one guy insisted on wearing his armor on a boat, and he pretty much sank to the bottom of the lake the characters were attempting to cross). After we finished with that, I got a chance to run a full campaign which lasted for a good 3 years. Around the time I finished up, 3rd Edition came out, so it was a good place to stop that campaign.
I've been playing fairly regularly, and my kids (now teenagers) both play. I even ran a game for my son and his friends during one of his birthday parties, where I introduced a recurring villain they wanted to know more about. That was pretty cool.
Superstar
I first found out about Paizo, beyond those guys who sent my Dungeon and Dragon magazines, through Superstar back in 2007. I'd never been a fan of messageboards, but the community here was terrific, and I kind of just settled in.
My first item was a SIAC and didn't even come close to the inventiveness and sheer gonzo of the first year's items. After that, I kept submitting items where I kept adding that one extra thing to "make it awesome". Um, no. I detailed my items in the other thread, so you can check those out...if you dare. :)
This year, I decided to do something simple and with a tight theme (although I couldn't resist adding that extra bit--the flying--which put it over the edge), and it seemed to pay off.
In the meantime, I've had the good fortune to freelance for Kobold Quarterly, which led to the publication of Book of Drakes with Adam Daigle, Rite Publishing, Clockwork Gnome Press, and a little bit for Paizo. I don't think I would have taken the chance with that first submission to the Kobold Quarterly website without first trying out for RPG Superstar.
Sommers, I used to ski a lot at Bear Creek.
Wow, Lehigh Valley represent, Steve! Whereabout are you now?
Very small world -- we'll all definitely have to find a way to get together to play the 2012 Superstar's module when it comes out next year.
I went skiing once at Bear Creek. Good slopes.
I've been in Raleigh NC 3 years now.
I think one tough spot for me is wondering how the next round entries will be received, and what it will be like when it comes to public voting and commenting.
Well, this will probably date me, but I 1st was introduced to D&D around 1977 by a friend in Middle school who excitedly brought home from a local bookstore in Minneapolis, this odd little 3 booklet collection for a game called Dungeons and Dragons, from a company called Tactical Studies Rules - we weren't wargamers, but the concept of creating an individual character that could then be ran through an adventure was just the ticket I needed at that time.
Those were really difficult years for me - parents divorced, mother very religious and strict, me a hopelessly geeky uncoordinated and painfully shy young man who basically hated his own existence - the ability to get together with a few like-minded nerds and live out an alternate life in a fantasy setting not only gave me a social outlet (such as it was) - it also may have saved my life; Lord knows where I would have turned without that escape.
And thankfully, though my mother frowned upon the game, esp. its references to demons and the like, she couldn’t quite shut me down from socializing with my friends. In those days, it was almost always a “sleepover” – we’d start playing Friday after school; end up staggering home from one of my friends basements on Saturday evening for dinner with our neglected parental figures.
A couple years later, out came the 1st boxed set. I still think fondly of the phrase, "The Keep on the Borderlands", LOL. That edition, and the ensuing switch to AD&D around that same year, sustained me through high school.
I took a brief break when I joined the Marines, though in the last year of my 4 year enlistment, someone brought their set of books and dice onto the base, and since I was deemed the only Marine sufficiently creative enough to actually come up with a story (being true jarheads, the others were really more interested in creating awesome characters, killing things and smashing stuff) I became a DM for the 1st time by default. And I found I enjoyed the role of Dungeonmaster as much or more than the role of player. Around that time, 2nd edition came out, and that was one of my 1st purchases when I left the USMC.
Since then, I’ve expanded my RPG repertoire, including Ravenloft, a reluctant switch to the 3rd Edition (…”Dammit! Where’s my THAC0!?!...”), followed by yet another upgrade to 3.5 [insert dramatic sigh of martyrdom here]; Shadowrun, DC Heroes, Traveler, 1st the original, and more recently the latest edition of White Wolf’s World of Darkness games (my current 2nd favorite game system), Savage Worlds – Deadlands, and most recently Pathfinder – my new fave. I took a brief look at the 4th Edition of D&D, but was not interested – partly because I had just bought a whole bunch of 3.5 books and supplements, only to realize WotC had quickly made yet another edition to suck my bleeding bank account dry, but also because I just didn’t like the feel of the latest incarnation. I’ve always been more of a “role” player, then a “roll” player – probably why storytelling is usually my strongest suit, and mechanics my weakest.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka FaxCelestis
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I've been playing D&D since I was 6 (so 22 years now): my dad was an avid gamer and his weekly sessions were held at our house, so I watched and learned over his shoulder until one day I asked to play too. He said yes, and I rolled a short-lived halfling ranger. The campaign lasted a little while and rolled into a Runequest game later. I played in that one too: two different characters, one a anthropomorphic duck, one a giant.
I started homebrewing sixteen years later when I found the homebrew forum on the Giant in the Playground's site in 2006, and have been an avid homebrewer since (case in point: my wiki is full of so much stuff http://wiki.faxcelestis.net ).
I've got to commend you guys for using this time and the messageboards to share more about yourselves. If you haven't spent much time on the Paizo boards before (as compared to someone who has), you really need to start giving the voters a sense of who you are, where you came from, how you see the game, etc. Sean (and I) have encouraged contestants in the past to update their profiles here on the messageboards so people can at least click on your name and read more about you (to get a sense of the designer behind the designs). This thread's topic is doing a good job of providing some of that insight about you. Even so, you still might want to update your profiles just to make it easier for folks--i.e., so they don't have to find their way to this thread to learn these things about all of you.
Carry on,
--Neil
Done. Anything you ever wanted to know about Jacob Trier and more...just one swift click away.
Oh, and don't forget -
Oh, and don't forget -
But ... but ... vote for which one?
Besides, I see myself as more an Edward kinda guy... no, wait. Dammit, wrong genre again...
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka Jiggy
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Oh, and don't forget -But ... but ... vote for which one?
Everyone gets 8 votes, so vote for all of us! You'll even have 5 votes left over for Those Other Guys. ;)
A couple years later, out came the 1st boxed set. I still think fondly of the phrase, "The Keep on the Borderlands", LOL. That edition, and the ensuing switch to AD&D around that same year, sustained me through high school.
We played the heck out of that module... Every time I hear that one mentioned, I get all nostalgic.
...a reluctant switch to the 3rd Edition (…”Dammit! Where’s my THAC0!?!...”)...
It is truly rare to find someone who actually *misses* THAC0. Do you perhaps remember that "combat wheel" that came in an issue of DRAGON magazine? I knew some people who simply memorized all the combat matrices; me, I had to look them up more often than not, so THAC0 was an improvement (at the time).
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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Oh, and don't forget -But ... but ... vote for which one?
Besides, I see myself as more an Edward kinda guy... no, wait. Dammit, wrong genre again...
Yikes! Invoking The Series That Must Not Be Named might be grounds for disqualification. :P
Everyone gets 8 votes, so vote for all of us! You'll even have 5 votes left over for Those Other Guys. ;)
I could use any leftover mojo that you have! :-)
Luckily, I'm flying to Toronto Wednesday morning for a job interview.
Good luck on your job interview! :)
Sommers, I used to ski a lot at Bear Creek.
Wow, Lehigh Valley represent, Steve! Whereabout are you now?
Very small world -- we'll all definitely have to find a way to get together to play the 2012 Superstar's module when it comes out next year.
I went skiing once at Bear Creek. Good slopes.
I've been in Raleigh NC 3 years now.
Nice! Fellow skiers! I grew up skiing the "Greatest Snow on Earth" here in Utah. That's actually how my parents met; they were both Ski Patrol at a local ski resort. My Dad also worked as a ski instructor.
Cool, Chad. I've only gotten to ski out west once, in Banff. We had a blizzard in the middle of my trip, so there was great powder. Unfortunately, I'm used to a nice sheet of ice on the mountains out here in the east and found it far more difficult to ski in "good" conditions.
Wait, another person from Utah? I'm up in Ogden...and I've skied a fair amount myself...not the best at it, but decent.
And... profile updated!
You and I both wrote in the third person on our profiles. ;-)
Dang...now I want to go rewrite my profile in the third person.
(oh, and Tom...Team Gruntwork?)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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Dang...now I want to go rewrite my profile in the third person.
(oh, and Tom...Team Gruntwork?)
Team Gruntwork was really cool...they crunched a lot of the feats that appeared in Ultimate Combat. There may have been more than that, but that was the big job.
(oh, and Tom...Team Gruntwork?)
LOL. Yeah, that was my 5 seconds of fame. Crack open Ultimate Combat and you'll see my name in the Designers credits. I wrote the original turnover for a few of the feats in that book. "Team Gruntwork" refers to myself and 5 other RPG Superstar alums that Sean approached to help write some content.
It just goes to show that even if you don't win this contest you can still get noticed!
Wait, another person from Utah? I'm up in Ogden...and I've skied a fair amount myself...not the best at it, but decent.
Hi, Ben! My Dad grew up in Ogden, my wife was born at McKay-Dee Hospital, and I got my Associates Degree at Weber State University. Small world! :)
Wait, another person from Utah? I'm up in Ogden...and I've skied a fair amount myself...not the best at it, but decent.Hi, Ben! My Dad grew up in Ogden, my wife was born at McKay-Dee Hospital, and I got my Associates Degree at Weber State University. Small world! :)
Apparently! I grew up in Logan, myself, and don't really have much else to say about it. My life's been pretty boring, for the most part.
Chiming in...
My roleplaying pedigree is, briefly at least, in my profile. So I want to say a few words about how I came to spend time on the Paizo messageboards.
In late 2007 my wife and I made the huge decision to move half way round the world and away all our family and friends. We came here to New Zealand for the lifestyle, the weather, and for the adventure. We found all of that and more! But I missed roleplaying with my friends from London; missed roleplaying itself. Books and movies can be great, but there's nothing quite like making the story yourself.
So we started an online Ars Magica game, using some free wiki software and developing our own way of playing. I first came to the Paizo website looking for pdfs of Ars Magica rules and adventures. New Zealand is a looooong way away for posting physical books! Somewhere in my browsing for sourcebooks, I noticed a bright red-and-blue RPGSS logo. When I checked it out I was instantly transported back to my D&D childhood.
I followed the rest of the competition, and was bitten by the D&D bug again. I had missed all of the edition dramas, and Pathfinder just felt right, so I joined some PBPs and have been playing here ever since. This year, for the first time, I felt that I had time and mental space enough to take on RPGSS. I want a serious creative challenge and, just possibly, something to rock the boat a little bit in the balance of work, hobby, and home.
And now there are less than 24 hours until the round two reveal. And then it's all on again.
I've put a little bit of history on my profile but I'll add a bit more here.
After playing a bit of everything in the 90s (I absolutely love the 2nd edition Ravenloft setting), my gaming group at university started playing 3.0 in the week it was released. It was three or four sessions before the monster manual came out so we were somewhat limited in opponents.
The campaign we started then is still running twelve years later, although it's only twice a year these days. It's evolved through the various systems to a heavily modified version of Pathfinder. My Half-Orc Druid has made it from humble initiate to Grand Druid and his faithful badger companion has retired to the comfort of a dryad's grove.
I was introduced to Paizo when the GM of that group made it into RPG Superstar 2008. His progress to the Top 8 that year led me to explore all the wonderful things that were going on around Pathfinder and I've been hooked ever since.
I GM every week now with a different group and am currently wrapping up Rivers Run Red from Kingmaker (although it might not be very recognisable to the writer of that module).
I'm now itching to see the comments on my organisation and to review the other 31. This contest is such a blast!